Healthy food on a budget

I am having a lot of trouble eating healthy foods due my extremely limited budget.  Any ideas for cheap, but not shoddy foods would be greatly appreciated.

The trade off with cheap, healthy foods is that they tend to require some preparation and cooking.  If you're prepared to put in a little elbow-grease you can make your budget spin out a long, long way.

Start with seasonal vegetables and fruit.... anything that's been imported is going to be more expensive.  Eat less meat.  Instead, use more pulses (legumes)..... dried beans, lentils and chickpeas are practically for free and are a fantastic, low-cal, low-fat, high-fibre, high protein food.  Canned beans are a little more expensive but don't need soaking and cooking.  Look for special offers on long-life foods or foods you can freeze...... the 'buy one get one free' bag of pasta will sit in the cupboard, no problem.   Cook up plain oats for breakfast rather than fancy cereals.   Invest in some basic condiments, herbs and spices so that you can jazz up plainer ingredients and turn them into flavoursome meals.   Cheap/unpopular cuts of meat can be turned into fantastic stews.  Soup..... Soup's a great way to use up bits and pieces left in the fridge rather than throwing them away.

Last tip.... make a meal plan and shop with a list.  That saves a packet.

Not sure where you're at, but I started shopping the grocery isle at my local Dollar store! I was paying $2.25 for a package of no name whole wheat pasta at the grocery store, and they sell a diff brand (same stats)  there for $1 !!! Also things like spices tend to be much cheaper, I buy the minced garlic in a jar (only ingredient is garlic) for only $1 cuz when I try to keep the fresh stuff in my house, it always starts to sprout before I use it :o(

I agree with what GI Jane was getting at.... When DH and I first moved in together, I was cooking alot of pre-made, processed foods and our grocery bill was ridiculously high for just 2 people.  I started trying to eat healthier and reduce our grocery bill at about the same time.

If you try to buy the processed 'health' foods, you're going to run out of money on not much food.  However, if you'll stick with fresher ingredients that are better for you and cook simple dishes to begin with, you'll find that not only does your budget stretch alot farther, but you also will be eating much healthier.  My staples include brown rice, frozen veggies, canned beans, HERBS AND SPICES, chicken breasts, ground turkey (where I live it's alot less expensive than most other meats), tomato paste and chicken broth. 

Also, search the recipes on here for great meal ideas, I have a dozen or so tagged because I make them so often.

I'm in the mountains of Western NC, very beautiful, but also rather expensive where I live.  I have started shopping an hour or so away because the prices are so much cheaper.  Thanks for your help.

Find a farmer's market (here in GA, people even sell fresh crops at the flea market). It's the perfect season to get fresh healthy foods cheap.

At my local grocery store peanut butter is cheaper than peanuts.

I put dark red kidney beans on my salad for protein: 59 cents a can. Organic? 98 cents a can

Applesauce is crazy cheap. As are bags of apples. Or the mixed bag with apples and oranges.

Shop sales.

A lot of my dinners consist of a grilled lean meat (bought on sale), and a side of vegetables (in season and cheap, steamed or grilled). You don't have to be a great chef for these types of dishes

Lettuce is cheap! Nix some of the expensive toppings and salads are cheap (cheap salad stuff: cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers).

Don't be afraid of new things. The grocery store here occasionally gets atypical fruits/veggies (like starfruit), and a week later it is invariably on sale because no one knows what it is : )

I just got back from the grocery store, spent about $25 on:
Romaine Lettuce, Cucumbers, Dressing, Kidney Beans, Applesauce, Eggplant, Ice cream cups (90 calorie summer treat), Wasa crackers, cream cheese, boneless skinless chicken breasts, Green giant steamable veggies.

I still have peanut butter, bread, bananas and other such things from last week. I grow my own tomatoes, peppers, and green beans. So this shopping will last me about a week.

I do a lot of from-scratch cooking to save money and still eat a healthy diet.  I buy 50# bags of wheat from Wheat Montana (cost around $20) and from that I grind flour to make bread, cook the wheat whole and eat for breakfast or add to salads and casseroles to stretch the meat, and also sprout the wheat to put on sandwiches or in salads.  A bag lasts my family of 9 about 2-3 months.  My homemade bread costs under $1 a loaf and tastes great.  We eat a lot of produce, but I stick to the basics like apples, bananas, carrots, celery, and potatoes from the store, otherwise I wait for a sale or plant a garden and hope the deer stay out of it!  I use dry beans instead of canned.  We eat homemade soup for lunch quite often, I can make a huge pot of soup with very healthy ingredients and feed my large family for a couple of dollars.   We have pizza once a week, but I make it myself.  I don't buy many pre-packaged foods, my kids would eat two boxes of cereal at one breakfast and that is just too expensive!  I think everyone has to decide what is important to them, I don't judge anyone else's choices...this is just what has worked for me since I have a big family and a small grocery fund, and eating healthy is important to me.

Whole grains and pulses (beans). 

Whole grains come dried and you just boil them or add hot water and they're cooked.  Oatmeal, quinoa, millet, spelt, brown rice, wheat germ, wheat bran, barley etc.  They make excellent side dishes and excellent "oatmeal" type of breakfasts.  But the packaged and their dirt cheap, buy them in bulk and they are cheaper than dirt.  Most of them are available organic where I live, for slightly more.  Pulses come dried also but require more planning and boiling and are cheaper than dirt as well.  Both are incredibly nutritious and assume the flavours of whatever spices or flavouriings you use with them. 

The trick is, you have to learn new recipes if you've never cooked with this stuff and be prepared to have some failures along the way till you get used to them.  But if you can cook with them, they cost only pennies per serving and are incredibly good for you.